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TechnoratiEfforts to Crack Down on Lead Paint Thwarted by China, Bush Administration
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn't used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children's products.
Both have fought efforts to better police imported toys from China.
Now both are under increased scrutiny following last week's massive toy recall by Mattel Inc., the world's largest toymaker. The recalls of Chinese-made toys follow several other lead-paint-related scares since June that have affected products featuring Sesame Street characters, Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer.
Lead paint is toxic when ingested by children and can cause brain damage or death. It's been mostly banned in the United States since the late 1970s, but is permitted in the coating of toys, providing it amounts to less than six parts per million.
The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children's products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.
"The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it," said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. "That's been the philosophy of the Bush administration."
Today, more than 80 percent of all U.S. toys are now made in China and few of them get inspected.
"We've been complaining about this issue, warning it is going to happen, and it is disappointing that it has happened," said Tom Neltner, a co-chairman of the Sierra Club's national toxics committee.
The recent toy recalls - along with the presence of lead in vinyl baby bibs and children's jewelry - are prompting the Bush administration to take a deeper look at the safety of toys and other imported products.
President Bush has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to report in September on ways to better ensure safe imports. He's also asked the Centers for Disease Control and Protection to consider responses to lead paint threats to children.
But as recently as last December, the Sierra Club sued the Bush administration after the Environmental Protection Agency rebuffed a petition to require health and safety studies for companies that use lead in children's products. The EPA and Sierra Club settled out of court in April, with the administration agreeing to write a letter to the CPSC that expressed concern about insufficient quality control on products containing lead.
The Sierra Club's interest in lead paint in children's products grew out of the largest-ever CPSC-conducted recall. That action on July 8, 2004, targeted 150 million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry sold in vending machines across the United States. Since 2003, the commission has conducted about 40 recalls of children's jewelry because of high levels of lead.
In March 2006, a 4-year-old Minnesota boy died of lead poisoning after swallowing a metal charm that came with Reebok shoes. The charm was found to contain more than 90 percent lead.
From 1994 until 2001, Ann Brown headed the CPSC under Presidents Clinton and Bush. She didn't push for an outright ban on lead in all children's products, partly because China's rise to export prowess hadn't yet unfolded.
"Today, I would say there should be an outright ban in any lead in any toy product," she said in a telephone interview. "If I were at CPSC now, I'd say that trying to recall (tainted products) is like picking sand out of the beach - it's just not possible."
Before leaving her post, Brown unsuccessfully pushed for pre-market testing of children's products. The idea largely died when the Bush administration took over, said Brown, who's working with Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The CPSC has only 100 field inspectors to police problems with all products sold to more than 301 million Americans. None of the inspectors are stationed in China or anywhere else abroad.
China remains very much under the microscope. It's fighting a CPSC proposal to bring the lead restrictions in children's jewelry to the same levels as those imposed on toys and furniture - six parts per million, which effectively amounts to a ban.
"We have done recall after recall since 2003. We would like to move towards a ban and make the marketplace safe," said Scott Wolfson, a commission spokesman.
But in a March 12 filing, China was the only one of 48 interested parties to tell the panel that it opposed new restrictions on lead paint in children's jewelry. Guo LiSheng, the deputy director of a Chinese global trade agency, warned against "unnecessary obstacles to trade" and advocated international rules that allow some lead content. He added that good product labeling was sufficient.
"We agree with the viewpoint of USA of protecting the children's healthy and safety. And we consider that the method of stick warning mark on the children's metal jewelry ... may be more efficient than setting the limit of lead content," LiSheng wrote from Beijing.
Of the 400 or so product recalls this year, about 60 percent involve products made in China, according to commission statistics.
In response to the toy recalls and tainted products, China announced last Friday the creation of a government panel on product safety. The government appointed Wu Yi, the vice premier and China's top problem-solver, to head the panel.
Outside a Toys-R-Us store in Maryland's capital city of Annapolis, Bruce Waskmunski suggested it was a no-brainer that lead should be completely banned from children's products. He's angry about the June recall of a Chinese-made Thomas the Train wooden toy that he bought his son.
"The only thing lead paint is in now (in the United States) is 40- or 50-year-old buildings," he grumbled. "We've known about lead paint for years, but we're giving away the penny to China."
To read Sierra Club's initial request for the Bush administration to monitor lead, click here: Sierra Club request.
To read the EPA's settlement with Sierra Club, click here: EPA settlement.
2007 McClatchy Newspapers
46 Comments so far
Show AllWasn't it Clinton that ended the yearly update of "most favored nation" status? Endorsed by almost every living previous president. Corporate cronies all.
dangerous items imported created under conditions we (everyday workers) put an end to in our country a century ago. now the robber barrons just moved the industry away from our (somewhat) safe conditions.
How everyday people in China suffer from the lead?
corporate chumps.
end corporate rule
http://www.poclad.org
A click on the link after the date of:
"McClatchy Newspapers"
leads not to the article's source, but to another article on commondream.org
Plus after I log in I am not led back to the article I attempted to log in at.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
end corporate rule
http://www.poclad.org
Boycotting wont work and it's a lazy attitude to take. As a manufacture you have to stay competative. The few people who can afford and are willing to pay double, triple, or more for products made in the USA wont keep a company running.
Changing the amount it costs to opperate a business in the US is the only option. Health care is one example of why it is so expensive to operate in the US.
Buying local is the best of course but what are you going to do if there is something you want/need that you can't buy local? If you say, don't buy it, then you are living a dream about how the world and US work at the moment.
An excellent statement by Giovanna. Also agree with happystead. It's now back to the 18th century when the kings sat on their thrones surrounded by perfumed parasites while the impoverished peasants and serfs carried out the work to support their lavish indulgences. The kings fattened and frolicked while the serfs starved. Fortunately, the serfs rose up and a revolution followed cutting off many aristocratic heads. It set the tone for social changes that followed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries throughout Europe and North America with workers fighting for and gaining middle class wages and social benefits.
Eureka! CEO's and their political supporters ( like the perfumed supporters of the kings) have rediscovered how profitable it can be to return to 18th century values. It is called globalization. Remove your costly workers and find your labour where wages are low and social obligations don't exist. By pass the social legislation and workers rights established by your nation state. How clever! By removing local labour costs and a regulated environment profits soar and the CEO's have returned to the luxuries of Versailles. A harvest of yachts, trophy wives and many mansions.
Buy at Wallmarts! Unfortunately it has to pay local workers, albeit at substandard hourly rates with negligible benefits, but it can sell you cheap products contracted throughout the world with nations who will offer penny labour willing to work unlimited hours without benefits . Forget about your neighbours who lost their good jobs and look after yourself.
On second thought, maybe it is time to get mad and organize to do something about it.
I just have one word: WALMART!!!
Good point by highrie.
The separation between the have-mores and the have-lesses grows everyday. We let them re-engineer and PATENT our food so now if you want "clean" food, you pay more, or, even worse, if you want to actually GROW food, you have to buy their patented seed to do so.
What's so "free" about America anyway???
UNREGULATED CAPITALISM LEADS INEXORABLY TO FEUDALISM and the serf is definately up!
Peace to you and yours.
"Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana
I don't know why anybody should be surprised by any of this. This entire debacle was predictable starting with Reagan and ending with Shrub. The tendency of unregulated corporate behavior supported by neo-fascist, elitist government, is to greedily exploit everything and everyone in a patholgical pursuit of profit for the wealthy. This is a well-documented fact. Unless there is some type of revolt, we must come to expect more defective and dangerous products, in addition to tainted food, flowing through US corporations from China. It's simply reality, thanks to our government, which operates more like an organized crime cabal than as a social construct to REPRESENT and protect "we the people."
The reason these American capitalists are in China is to exploit cheap, slave labor and to escape any and all possible scrutiny (oversight) or intervention from what's left of American regulatory laws. Thanks to complete malfeasance on the part of our elected representatives, the US has given up its sovereignty to the WTO in matters of "free trade." For instance, we cannot even try to level the playing field for companies that actually remain in the US and that want hire US workers, because the US can no longer set its own import tariffs. I feel as if we're living in some Orwellian world where the moon is jumping over the cow. The corruption and exploitation was not only predictable and dangerous, but arrogant and blatant, yet the US government champions and defends it at the expense of the public's health and safety. It's pure craziness.
To gain a historical perspective, Americans need to study REAL American history, particularly following this country's industrial revolution. For those who are not aware, we are reliving this miserable part of our past. This is simply the new era of the corporate 'robber-barons.' Get a copy of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and read it. Also, read, and then re-read, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Sorry to disappoint, but there is nothing exceptional or virtuous about American history. If Americans would become more educated about America's shady past, gain a clear understanding of the corruption and collusion between our government and the corporate behemoths, and comprehend fully how this places all of our lives in the balance, perhaps we can effect change...before it's really too late. It is my hope that people will quit waving their flags, tune out corporate media pablum, quit being distracted by the cult of celebrity and pop culture kitsch, and begin to really focus attention on their government. The clock is ticking.....
It's easy to "buy local or not buy at all", if you have money. What if you're poor and can't afford to spend the extra couple bucks per day on food? or double to get clothing?
Two points:
1) Thru the centuries, most Christians have followed the prescribed tenets of their selected RELIGION. The rules, laws, edicts, etc. provided to them by men who have "intrepreted" the words of the prophets are merely that, interpretations meant to enslave the masses to behave as sheep. In recorded history, more humnas have died in the name of "God" = Religion, than from epidemics, natural catsatrophes, etc.
2) Anyone who thinks the cabal of folks guiding us into the New World Order have even one scintilla of concern about whether little children die painful and needless deaths needs to have his/her head examined. Increasing their wealth and control is the only religion they employ. Creating more laws that will never be enforced only serves to passify those who still cannot believe that their own governement and corporate leaders are tirelessly working to reduce them to slavery.
happystead:
"Have Christians EVER followed the teachings of Christ?"
I've been reading "American Colonies, The Settling of North America". There's an amusing story in there. In New England in the 1620s and '30s there was an attempt at indoctrinating local Indians into Puritan, English culture. These "praying Indians" learned English, studied the Bible in depth and began to ask why the Puritans didn't do anything that the Bible told them to do. Drove the white ministers crazy.
gail,
After careful consideration I have come to the conclussion I have no idea what it means to be "Christian." Too often people ask, "why isn't Bush more Christian?" Historically speaking, Bush is VERY Christian. (I'm sure he's proud of that fact, too.)
Have Christians EVER followed the teachings of Christ? By "followed," I mean beyond-lip-service, of course.
Lead-based paint. It ain't just for nursery room walls anymore.
UNREGULATED CAPITALISM LEADS INEXORABLY TO FEUDALISM.
Serfs up!!!
Peace to you and yours.
gail...christian fundamentalists HAVE lost their minds.
Buy American? Really, I have no use for a Stryker vehicle or an Abrams tank.Even bullets are getting scarce since 1 billion a year are used by the military for training and fighting.
Suggest checking out www.economyincrisis.org which lists the percentage of various products used in the US which are imported.
The Bush administration has set America back fifty years....they didn't pay much attention to lead poisoning in 1957 either.....I betcha dubya had a taste for paint chips.
This is nothing the lobbyists can't fix. Just make sure that the lobbyists have the made in USA label.
WDMAX3. Some American brand name company's are getting around that, the label says made in USA and then in very fne print it gives the home address and states some items are imported. After getting home and taking the wrapping off, you find it's made in China. Many are American brand names, like, Craftsman, Chicago cutlery, Emerson, etc.
We have given the Chinese our technology and sell them the raw materials.Their quality control is often lousy after the American corporation technicians have left them on their own. They pull the Chinese "SQUEEZE", cutting costs at every turn. They do package their product well, of course that is often done in the parent factory in America, by low wage earners and is where the USA logo may be placed on the box. Many of the 'good looking' quality Chinese made products are really shoddy and don't last long. Some of the electrical products are downright dangerous, items such as hairdryers and toaster ovens for example. Those that use high current to function.___ We're in trouble.
Look for the "Made in USA" label. If it is not labeled then don't buy it.
I wonder if the Bushit administration has had to take a mandatory drug test lately? It seems they all have gotten a hold of some really bad dope!
And since they can't be responsible w/our tax dollars and only pay attention to the Corporations and special lobbyist groups, let's quit paying taxes, ALL OF US, and let the corporations and lobbyist's pay the American Bills and build our roads and BRIDGES and WARS, and give US hard working Americans a real tax break. Say for the next 10 years!
And since Social Security will be broke and done away with in the next 5 years, why don't they give us our money back?
One policy we have as Americans that will work, is called Consumer buying power. Eg, go to Wal-Mart, load your cart UP, then when in the check out, say, oooops! Sorry! That item is from China and I no longer support a country that does not balance the fair trade agreement, supports child labor, uses lead paint in their toys, and pisses on our veggies!"
Then just buy the items MADE IN AMERICA, and see how many you end up buying. When Wal-Marts warehouses start backing up w/Chinese made items, maybe they'll get the picture then. Too bad old Sam can't see what his company is doing now.
Like fixing Social Security.... get all the politicians off their own personal retirement program,[that we pay for as well] sign them up for social security and make them pay into it as well... Social Security will be fixed in 6 months!
Like The Global Warming Issues that the Bushit administration says doesn't exist. Tar & Feather his ass along w/his side kick, put them on an Ice Berg floating in the Atlantic w/2 hungry polar bears on it, then see how fast he discovers we have global warming issues.
People w/20 years of education, still wanting to use coal for an energy source, trading w/countries that use outlawed poisons since the 70's, and have no idea of what "fair trade" means, that can't balance our check book, and we pay them $785,000.00 a year + benefits and protection.
WHAT'S WRONG W/THIS PICTURE ?
In Texas, you can buy decorative plates with a yellow triangle on them. In California, those plate contain not only the triangle, but also an explanation of what that triangle means: "This product contains lead."
The manufacturers complain about having to print the "second" one for California.
Lead paint dudn't do nuth'n wrong to GW Bush, why should he worry fer the rest of th kids?
Did yooz see him a readin ta thems kids on 9/11 ? A plane was a flyin into the WTC and the trained National Guard Pilot himself just a kept on a readin to thems nice little lead paint brain damaged chil ren. What agreat guy!
See's he knew as a TRAINED Guard pilot that ya call up the Guard an git some planes up thar ta de-fend this thar A-merka from ter-rists likes the wons that blew ups the first bom in the van at the WTC when his poppa was pres-dent.
HE new as a TRAINED NATIONAL GUARD PILOT that a second, third, forth etc. hi-jacked aero plane could be ups thar an he should givin orders ta shot em down. But he a kept on a readin ta them chil rin! Whata nice guy! He LOVES chilren!
I love the quote by Guo LiSheng, deputy director of a Chinese global trade agency. He says "the method of stick warning mark on the children's jewelry...may be more efficient than setting the limit of lead content." Of course, it's more efficient for the Chinese and it also only nominally affects their profit. After all, they are getting paid up front by the companies that order these polluted products.
BUY AMERICAN
"The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it," said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. "That's been the philosophy of the Bush administration."
Brain damage and possible death to children from toxic lead poisoning is O.K. as long as someone is making a profit, but using condoms is not O.K. to prevent unwanted pregnancies? And now this president wants to spend our tax dollars to give African men circumcisions to reduce the spread of Aids? Please tell me I'm hallucinating!
In my entire life, I have never imagined that anyone on earth could have such a f**ked-up philosophy. How can a person in their right mind insist that unwanted children be brought into this world while simultaneously undermining their ability to reach adulthood?
Here we have a president who doesn't want to fund health care for poor children while he avoids holding super-wealthy corporations responsible for poisoning them only to increase profits for the 10% who own 90% of the capitol share investments in this country.
If Christian fundamentalists don't feel ashamed by this, they have totally lost their minds and really don't have a clue what it means to be a Christian.
This won't make anyone feel any better, but I'll tell you anyway. In today's report in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper about the results of the meeting of "the Three Amigos", there is the following statement about one of the results:
"The three North American leaders also agreed to block the import of unsafe goods, especially toys. The move follows a spate of safety scares linked to the "Made in China" label worldwide. Unsafe food additives, toothpaste and toys from China have all been in the international spotlight in recent months."
Given how much it costs for them to have these meetings, and how inconsequential the outcome, I join those who are urging the leaders to meet by teleconference. This won't affect the outcome--nothing will--but at least it will save the taxpayers a chunk of change.
After the whole bush adminisration is found guilty of high crimes, send them all to a chinese
toy factory to work the rest of their lives.
Bush/Cheney love lead especially when in bullets shot at Iraqi children.
Don't they execute the executives in China if they F-UP and give China a bad name?
You have to admire them for that. I wonder if we'll hear of firing squads getting some practice over this latest embarrassment from the "people" republic.
Boycott Chinese products or kindly shut the F up.
I'm sure that the Chinese care for children just as we do. Maybe even more than we care for ours. Lead paint? Most of our houses were covered with lead paint. Plumbing? That comes from the Latin word for lead. How about a century of burning Tetra Ethel Lead in our automobiles? Even after we finally got the lead out of our gasoline there was a toxic additive that poisoned our ground water - and under NAFTA we were required to pay the manufacturor's profits not to use it...
We can worry about imported products all we want but we will still have our own toxic messes to contend with. Perhaps China will move to European standards. Then we can trust our imports but not our own shortcommings.
What happened to the CEOs of the companies that made the bad toothpaste and some to the toys? Maybe if the samething happened to the CEOs in this country there would be a change.
Never mind China the problem is Mattel. They moved to China where they don't pay health care, pensions no vacations and low low wages.
Nothing like "free trade" great term, words like free and trade togehter which equals screw the American worker.
Don't forget the wonderful tax cuts for Mattel give by Bush and Congress.
The problem is that these companies aren't American and don't want to be. They are worldwide-----no taxes, no rules, or to quote the goat regulations.
Great story in the NYTimes today that the US is very worried about foreign countries that hold so many U.S. dollars. They our leaders are afraid that they will begin to buy up U.S. companies, like banks, insurance companies etc. and might use them for political purposes. Do as I say not as I do. The motto of our goverment criminals.
The Clintons the Bushees and their Wannabees
have destroyed our industrial base for a temporarary dollar. If they think that they will be safe in their Gated Communities come the
revolution, remind them of the Guillotine.
All the Kings and the King's men went.
Bush is one of the most honest politicians
Once he's bought, he stays bought. Or else maybe he played with one too many lead-painted toys as a child
I hate to say it, but this headline (and the one about Bush vetoing the child healthcare bill) are somewhat heartening to me. Here's why:
Because Americans are overworked and undereducated (especially with regard to critical thinking skills), identity politics is as far as most get with regard to any kind of political thinking at all. In other words, most people don't pay attention to politics until it hits them where they live. Or, as my old drag queen roommate used to moan, "Think of the children, Clare, won't someone please think of the children!"
In simplistic terms, the invasion of Iraq got some people inflamed against the Bush administration and the neocon agenda because it was utterly obvious from the bombing campaign, Bush didn't give a s*** about Iraqi civilians or their children.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast got more people's attention because it became abundantly clear that Bush didn't give a rat's @$$ about American children, either -- at least not if they were poor and brown.
The lead paint and children's healthcare bill have revealed that Bush doesn't give a wet slap about white, middle-class American kids, either.
Guess what? We've finally hit the population whose votes and dollars count for something (or used to until fairly recently). My advice to any truly Democratic candidate (Hillary doesn't count) or progressive journalist is to keep the spotlight on these issues. Keep churning out headlines, opinion pieces, and statements to the press about how Hurricane Katrina, No on SCHIP, and the bridge collapse in Minneapolis are what Republican neocon values in action look like.
Hit them where they live.
WILMOOR; ___ We recently bought a pair of plastic sawhorses and a wooden rolling pin that were made in America. We also bought a nice ceramic serving bowl made in the U.S. However, after removing the cardboard shipping cover, on the bottom of the bowl was black lettered printng___ Made In China. I wonder what type of paint was used in the ceramic?
Took the sawhorses back to Wal-Mart,__ total junk. That is what we are making in America now, a lot of cheap junk. Not all,___ LOTS!
And the people of the world know it. What happened to this once great nation? Yeah, we know what happened.__ We gonna reverse it, and is that possible?
Is there REALLY anything at all still being made in the USA?? I'd sure like to know what it is. Even half the processed or canned foods we're eating now is coming from foreign countries. My son bought a can of Planters Cocktail Peanuts, and half of them were black, and half rotten looking, and there was very fine short hairs mixed in. I don't trust half of what's on store shelves any longer. We don't know where things are coming from, where it's been, or what might be in it.
It's not about country of origin. It's about minding the store no matter where the toys are made.
Whether it's leaded paint in toys or insufficiently regulated mines, this administration is handing over the keys to the store time and time again, in industry after industry to the industry itself.
When it comes to W, Consumer Beware.
It is not only lead. It is also mercury, etc. See:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-alphabetical.html
The Union of Concerned Scientists is collecting information on this administration's abuse of science and the incorrect information being given to the public.
If ALL of us refused to listen to the commercials and didn't purchase more than one single present this coming Christmas season, that single present made in the US of A. We would send a money message to the Wal-Marts and the Neo-cons, that would shake their s**t. Have you been to a Hallmark gift store recently?__ CHINA!__ All of their junk in made in China. Inexpensive though? Ha-ha ha,___ check it out.
"Do the Chinese parents allow their own children too play with there lethal toys???"
Play with them???___The Chinese children are making the toys!!! Slave labor.
That's what I call a stickywicket. Stickers might be the answer "Do you value your child's life? Buy USA. But, if the toys that are made in the USA are not regulated either who is to know what to buy. Sounds like oversight on everything from food to toys has been ditched in favor of profits. Do the Chinese parents allow their own children too play with these lethal toys???
And Bush says that outsourcing is good for the country.
I wonder what Mattel thinks about all this. I wonder if they see it as an inconveinience or if they care about children.
Does this fall into the catagory of "high crimes and misdemeanors"? I mean, the government allowing the poisoning of American children so WalMart can make a buck?
We live in sick country!
END CORPORATE GLOBALISM: BUY LOCAL OR DONT BUY AT ALL